Where there’s smoke, there’s fire — and it’s the fire inside Chris Crosbie that turned his joy and knowledge of cannabis into a family-run business that’s employing people across Newfoundland and Labrador.
The chief operating officer of Atlantic Cultivation is about to unveil its second Spiritleaf location on Oct. 2, and four more of the premium cannabis stores will also be opening within the next six months.
Today, Atlantic Cultivation is a St. John’s company that’s owned and run by multiple generations of three local families, but it grew from an idea that took Crosbie around the world and back again.
At the age of 19, he left St. John’s to continue his martial arts studies in China. He went on to help run a Muay Thai school in Thailand and train with a jujitsu master in Brazil, all while getting a deeper understanding of the connection between martial arts and cannabis usage.
As the Ultimate Fighting Championship began heating up, he moved to the U.S. to train and coach mixed martial arts at American Sports University in San Bernardino — and it was while living in California that Crosbie began exploring his passion for cannabis.
After years of using cannabis as a tool for healing physical and mental stresses, Crosbie found himself with a prescription for medical cannabis and joined a patient collective that gave him access to private clubs and dispensaries.
THE BUSINESS OF BUD
But Crosbie didn’t just want to smoke California’s prime cannabis. He dove deep into cannabis culture — exploring different breeders and strains — and designed a proprietary hydroponic system that combined deepwater cultures and aeroponics. He continued to teach martial arts and attend university, but threw his energy into installing systems and teaching other people how to grow quality cannabis.
At the time, California seemed to be on the cusp of legalizing recreational cannabis, so Crosbie struck a deal with a retail chain to begin manufacturing his hydroponic systems as soon as the vote passed — but the legalization failed. Crushed that his golden opportunity was gone, the recent university graduate gave up on his cannabis dreams and moved back home to St. John’s.
“It was a really low time for me. I’d always known I was going to come home at some point, but I had really wanted to create some kind of employment opportunity,” says Crosbie. “I felt like that was my destiny, but it wasn’t going to happen.”
He quietly began working in the oil and gas industry, and almost no one knew he’d once had a glowing cannabis career down in California. When cannabis was legalized in Canada in 2018 and Newfoundland and Labrador became the one of the only provinces with a completely privatized cannabis industry, Crosbie convinced two other families to invest in an idea that was sure to be huge: Atlantic Cultivation.
“We went to the government and said ‘We can build a world-class cannabis facility, we have the subject matter expert and we have the financing. Let’s create jobs here in Newfoundland and Labrador,’” recalls Crosbie.
The only hiccup was that they couldn’t provide any cannabis from the get-go, since they were waiting on federal licensing through Health Canada — a process that’s been in the works for two years now. So Crosbie secured a strategic partnership with Toronto’s Auxly Cannabis Group and guaranteed they’d create 120+ new jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador by the end of 2025. The government agreed.
MOVING INTO RETAIL
Construction on Atlantic Cultivation’s 110,000 sq. ft. facility is expected to wrap up by the end of 2020, and Crosbie is hopeful they’ll have their Health Canada license by then, too, so they can cultivate their own cannabis locally. But in the meantime, Atlantic Cultivation was allowed to open retail stores — which Crosbie says has been “a life-changing opportunity.”
After researching different retail models across Canada, the team decided the SpiritLeaf franchise best fit their vision of providing a fun, harmonious community for their customers.
“Just like us, they were completely focused on hiring enthusiastic, authentic people with a love and a passion for cannabis,” says Crosbie. “We couldn’t have asked for a better fit.”
Atlantic Cultivation worked with a local architecture and design firm to modify the Spiritleaf branding in a way that highlighted the beauty of Newfoundland and Labrador, with a tribute to Western Brook Pond in the frosted glass windows and custom wallpaper printed with the typography of Gros Morne National Park.
They opened Newfoundland and Labrador’s first Spiritleaf store in June on Topsail Road, and Crosbie says he loves the “kid-in-a-candy-store” vibe that comes from their customers and employees chatting away enthusiastically about their favourite strains and varieties.
“I can’t imagine what a store like Spiritleaf would have meant to my 19-year-old self,” says Crosbie. “My mind would have been blown.”
The brand-new Spiritleaf location opens Oct. 2 in Bidgoods North Plaza in Goulds, and new Spiritleaf stores are already in the works for Central Newfoundland, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor and Galway. Crosbie says reaching rural customers is important to him because it isn’t always easy to access quality cannabis outside St. John’s.
SPREADING ‘THE JOY OF CANNABIS’
“We have high-quality products and we talk about them with love, passion and joy,” says Crosbie. “I’m confident that even if a guest doesn’t learn something new about cannabis during their visit, they will certainly enjoy talking about it with our team as we spread the joy of cannabis.”
While the west coast is synonymous with producing some of the best cannabis on the planet, Crosbie feels confident the Atlantic Cultivation team has the knowledge and experience to put the east coast on the marijuana map.
“The passion here is equally great. I learn something new about cannabis every day because there are so many people who come in and chat about it,” says Crosbie. “This is a company run by people who are authentically passionate about cannabis.”
He’d always thought martial arts were his future, but Crosbie says he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d somehow come back home to change the face of cannabis in Newfoundland and Labrador. Seventeen years later, that’s exactly what he’s doing.
“To be able to look back on my life, see all the events that happened with cannabis, and have this opportunity to create a company that’s hiring people here at home? It’s absolutely amazing.”
